Grab-bag

I am getting a rhythm cutting and moving the wood.

With good snow, I can cut and move +400 pounds (dry equivalent) 330 yards. 300 yards dragging in a sled by hand and 30 yards by carrying and tossing over the fence. That takes between two and three hours of steady work. 

Since I figure I would be burning 4 pounds of wood an hour over 10 hours a day in a "doomer" scenario, that means that I can put up 10 day's worth of wood in one, 3 hour work-day with the only fossil fuel being what I need to run the chain-saw. That might be 300ml of mixed gas and some oil to lube the chain.

Disclosure: Turning the 48" bolts into 16" rounds will take a bit more gasoline but I hand-split so at least that part of the process will be gas-free. 

Realistically, 400 pounds/day means I will need 18 work-days "...with good snow..." to put up 180 day's worth of wood. That ends up meaning every good day over a two month span in mid-winter.  

That 40 pounds of wood per day will not keep it balmy in the house but it is enough to keep the pipes in the basement from freezing and to get half of the living-space up to about 70 degrees Fahrenheit by evening.

On the brighter side of things, I am running this experiment cutting from the farthest, back-corner of my property. The next patch I cut will be closer to the house so the time required to transport the wood will be less than what I have to invest for this experiment. 

The work of a living artist is scheduled for tomorrow

I really like his work and I reached out to him. My batting-average is about 50%. Half of the artists (or their agents) do not return the emails. Half of those who do respond choose to not let me show their work.

Remus told me to focus on dead artists whose work were in the public domain. It was his belief that chasing after "permission" to display intellectual property was wasted effort. I usually follow that advise but I am running out of dead artists. 

My overall impression of this artist's work is that it is very "clean" and "not-fussy". It is easy to look at. 

It turned out that this artist is quite young. I will really appreciate it if you provide feedback in the comments. I think he gets a fair amount of "professional" feedback but that has its own drawbacks. "Professionals" give us freaks for dog breeds, undrinkable wines and hot-sauces that will melt your face off. Creators need real-people to weigh-in to offset the judges who hand out blue-ribbons to creators who push the envelope until it falls off a cliff.

Roasting chickens

I roasted a 5 pound chicken Sunday, two weeks ago. We finished it today. We turned into soup for the second week. We got a lot of meals out of that bird.

Some of it is that neither Mrs ERJ or I are eating all that much as we recovered from the Blue Goofus virus.

Lovage

I plan to plant some this year. It is a perennial herb with a strong celery-like fragrance and taste. Does anybody have any opinions about this herb?

There are not a lot of classic, perennial herbs that survive our winters. Mint, catnip, oregano, thyme, garlic, multiplier onions. After that, the list gets weird. Is Ground Ivy really an herb?

I can do a lot with stews and soups if I have a little bit of salt, garlic, onion, pepper(s) and celery-flavor. Throw in 'taters, carrots, turnips-if-you-like and meat-if-you-have-it.